Software business incorporation

orangerocket · Nov 13, 2022

Hey guys,

I'm a Russian citizen living in Thailand (long visa) who wants to open a business in online SaaS field. My potential customers live in Britain and Europe. I need to find a way to open a company, business bank account (or EMI account) + payment provider (Stripe, etc.).

For sure I don't want to deal with my home country in any sense and want to work globally instead.

I've considered several options:
1. Hong Kong. Incorporation is easy, probably Airwallex as a banking solution. As doing outside of HK zero tax is a plus.
2. Singapore. The same as Hong Kong except of 15% tax?
3. UAE. Seems expensive + non English laws, probably harder to deal with comparing to British law + might be expensive.
4. Other options?

Could you please provide a best option to choose from for incorporation? Additional resources, links are appreciated.

Gediminas · Nov 17, 2022

Hey,

At least from a tax perspective, your mentioned companies are very different.

a) Singapore – up to 17% tax is applied, the company has tax resident status, average costs, relatively easy to set up banking solutions;

b) HK – zero tax for non-resident companies, but it might cause negative tax implications elsewhere (due to the PE rule). I don’t believe in practice Thai authorities would be able to apply this rule to tax companies in Thailand. Or, you can structure HK as a tax resident company with 16.5% tax. It would also help for banking purposes.

c) UAE – the best option from the tax point of view (resident company, but zero tax). As regards laws: for your commercial agreements, you can choose to apply any laws you wish including common UK laws (with certain exemptions). While local laws (applied to your company) are local, and they are in English and Arabic. Overall, corporate regulation depends on the free zone, but it might be highly flexible.

Hope this helps.